Many modern printing devices have an environment-friendly feature that is referred to as “multi-up,” “N-up,” or “N-in-1” copying or printing. In N-up printing, ‘N’ document pages are printed on a single designated print medium using the conventional image forming systems. This technology of copying or printing or copying ‘N’ document pages on a single designated medium (“N-up copying or printing”) provides environmental advantages by using less paper and toner/ink. In an example, the print medium can be a sheet or a paper on which the document pages are printed.
In this “N-up” copying or printing, ‘N’ is a positive integer equal to or larger than 2 and represents the number of full-size pages that are printed on a single designated print medium. For example, 2-up printing prints two original pages on one designated print medium. Similarly, 4-up printing prints four original pages on one designated print medium, 6-up printing prints six pages on one designated print medium, and the like.
However, in N-up copying or printing of multiple document pages having various sizes and/orientations, it sometimes occurs that size and/or orientation of one of the pages does not fit into an allocated surface area on a designated print medium, causing an inappropriate and unacceptable processing of N-up copying or printing. Sometimes requirements arise to change the orientation of a page while performing N-up or at later stages. Till date, there are no methods and systems available to change the orientation of one or more pages in N-up printing or copying or at later stages. Therefore, there is a need for efficient methods and systems.